COLORS: A Johnlock Soulmate Fic
by Quesarasara
Summary: Everyone on earth is born with eyes that see in black, white, and an endless series of greys. When you meet your soulmate, you finally see the world in color. We're all searching for the person who brings color to our lives. John and Sherlock are no exception.
1. SILVER

**SILVER **

Stretched out on his stomach near the edge of the water, legs splayed behind him while one bare foot kicks toe first into the ground before bouncing back up to let the other leg repeat the motion, the little boy arranges the assortment of shells and stones he's been gathering from along the beachfront all afternoon into neat rows like soldiers on the sand beneath him.

Eyeing his collection thoughtfully, he reaches out and plucks up a particularly smooth stone, turning it over in his fingers to brush the sand off its polished surface. The smoky charcoal edges are darker than the lighter grey it becomes toward the center. A fleck of seaweed sticks black and shiny to the bottom of the rock and the few droplets of water that still cling to it glow silver in the late afternoon sun. He holds it up over his head and watches the light shine through it, shades of grey that sparkle as he moves it back and forth. The boy sets it back down carefully into its place amongst the other treasures the sea has seen fit to release to his care and lets his eyes linger briefly over each object.

"Mummy?" he calls over his shoulder.

"Yeah, Johnny?" A shadow falls onto his shoulder and slides over the objects in the sand in front of him. "What have you got there, love?"

"Treasure," the fair haired boy replies with a dazzling smile up at his mother.

"Treasure indeed," she says as she sits down beside her son and rubs a hand absently over his back while surveying his haul. "You've found some beautiful shells, haven't you?"

"Yeah, but not just shells, Mum. Some rocks, and a piece of tin—and I found a bottle cap too!" He reaches out and picks up the round object, tilts it to watch the light play off the crimped edges, and holds it up for his mother to get a closer look and shyly asks, "What color is it?"

The woman's eyes crinkle at the corners, her pleasant though rather unremarkable face growing soft and lovely as she regards her young son. She looks again at the bottle cap and then stretches out one finger to tap against the tip of the boy's nose and replies, "It's green."

"_Green_," the boy repeats softly, a note of reverence in his voice, his eyes wide as he asks "What does green feel like?"

His mother narrows her eyes, one side of her mouth quirking up in a thoughtful fashion, and is silent for a moment. Then with a sudden smile she plucks the shiny disc from her son's hands, rubs the face of it against the sleeve of the soft shirt she's wearing, then reaches out and slides the smooth metal surface over the boy's forehead and says, "Green is cool and fresh, like walking over grass with bare feet."

John's face lights up with understanding, a smile spreading across his expressive features. He looks down over the other objects lined up in the sand before him and points to a small shell that shines a bit brighter than those on either side of it in the light of the afternoon sun and asks "What about that one? What color is it?"

"That one," his mother replies, "is pink".

"_Pink_," John says, pushing the word through his lips, out over his tongue and against the roof of his mouth. "Show me pink!"

Looking down at her child, she feels the familiar swell of affection rise inside her chest. Her little boy is growing up so fast—so curious about the world, so sure that she can explain things that are so very difficult to put into words.

Reaching out to clasp one of his small hands in her own, she raises it toward her face and puts her lips close to the back of his hand and says "Pink is warm and soft, like a whisper against your skin."

John giggles as his mum's breath tickles his knuckles, then turns back toward his collection and grabs the smooth dark stone he'd examined earlier. He holds it out to his mother with an expectant look on his face.

"Now _this_ is something special, Johnny," she remarks, her eyebrows raised in surprise as she takes it from him. "It's sea glass. A broken piece of a bottle, perhaps, that's been tumbled and worn shiny by the waves and had all the rough edges smoothed out."

The boy regards the stone with an impressed nod. "Cool. What color is it?"

"It's red," and before he can even ask, she brings his hand back up to her face and says "If pink is a whisper against your skin, then red is something warmer—like a kiss!" and with a warm huff of air she presses her lips to his skin, makes an exaggerated smooching sound, and revels in the laughter that bubbles out of the little boy's mouth.

A second shadow falls over the sand in front of them, and John looks up to see his older sister hovering overhead, a scowl marring her pretty face as her gaze travels over the items laid out so carefully before her brother.

"What's all this junk, then?" she asks, sliding one foot up and toeing a few of John's prized objects out of their orderly row.

"It's not junk, Harry!" John exclaims, moving to shield the rest of his treasures away from her feet as she raises her leg to kick them out of place again.

"Harry," their mother says, a slight timbre of warning in her voice. "Johnny has collected some very interesting things, and we've just been talking about all the colors he's found. Would you like me to tell you about them too?"

Harry rolls her eyes and cocks a hip in the careless way that generations of older sisters have perfected through centuries of practice then aims a petulant glance at her brother.

"No thanks," she says with a shrug. "But you should keep telling Johnny about them, because he'll probably never get to see colors anyway."

"Yes I will Harry!" John tells her as he pushes himself up to his knees in the sand, his brows together knit in a scowl. "I'll get colors when I meet the right person just like when Mum met Dad and then I will be able to see them all. And when I _can,_ I won't even tell _you_ how they feel!"

"Yeah, right." Harry sneers at her little brother as she flips her long hair over one tanned shoulder. "Like _you_ are anyone's soulmate."

"Harriet Jane Watson," their mother warns, "that's quite enough! Apologize to your brother."

Harry clenches her mouth shut and stares at the ground.

"I said, apologize to your brother," the woman repeats.

Harry squares her shoulders and feigns an indifferent shrug. "Sorry, Johnny. I'm sure there's someone very _special_ waiting out there for you," she says with a smirk, then rolls her eyes and turns to walk away.

"Your father and I will discuss this with you later, young lady!" their mother calls after her, and she and John watch the girl walk back up the beach to join her friends.

John stares down at the items in front of him, then out toward the ocean, a frown on his face as he replays his sister's 'apology' in his mind. After a moment he feels his mother's arm slide around him and squeeze gently, her lips brushing over his temple. As they both stare out over the sea, John lays his small head against his mother's shoulder and sighs.

"Mum, what color is the ocean?"

"The ocean is so many colors, Johnny. It's cool green, and soft grey, and glittery gold. Some days it's stormy indigo, and others it's fiery turquoise, and then sometimes it's the most peaceful blue you can imagine, the kind of blue that makes you want to wrap yourself in it and sleep for days. The day I met your dad, I saw all those colors in the sea for the very first time. It was so beautiful."

John sighs and leans more heavily against his mother. He looks out over the waves—at the white hot ball of the sun in the sky and the striated clouds in shades of grey shot through with silvery rays as it sinks beneath the black line of the edge of the smoky charcoal water that churns and runs white with surf over the grey sand of the beach—and wants to believe that Harry is wrong. That one day a chance meeting with a stranger will finally let him see all the colors that his mum has worked so hard to explain to him when he asks.

"Someday," he whispers (_pink_) against his mother's shoulder, "I want to see all the colors in the ocean."

"Oh Johnny," she says as she kisses (_red_) his forehead. "You will."

* * *

A riot of dark curls framing his pale-eyed face, the boy watches as the insect flutters through the air over the expansive back garden and hovers above the rose bushes that grow alongside the gardener's shed. With the stealth of a cat, all long limbs and bony elbows, he steadily approaches as the butterfly alights softly onto the petals of the largest bloom. Holding his breath he tries to remain absolutely silent as he nears the flowering bush, carefully extending his arm toward the specimen he's intent on collecting. He stays very still and slowly tilts his head from side to side observing how the sunlight plays over the insect's flat, outstretched wings.

Starting at the edge of the upper (_dorsum_) quarter of the left wing and repeating the scientific terms for each segment silently to himself (_apex, termen, tornus, costa_), the boy examines the butterfly. He takes note of the darkest marking, the largest spot on the wing (_cell_), and the variations of grey in the darkly outlined segments that radiate from it (_interspaces_). His gaze travels to observe the perfect symmetry of the right upper wing quadrant when the butterfly's wings shiver slightly and the insect slowly folds them up into a perfect vertical plane above its slim dark body.

Seizing the chance, the boy darts out a hand and pinches the wings gently between his thumb and forefinger, mindful not to press too tightly (butterfly wings are very fragile, he's learned, both by reading about them in the heavy book he found in the library on the second floor of the house, and by pinching them so hard that they all but crumbled between his fingers the first few times he'd gone collecting). Carefully clutching his specimen, he sprints across the grass to where his older brother sits, a book in his lap and long legs crossed, a tall glass of ice water sweating on the table next to him in the afternoon sun.

"Mycroft," the little boy cries, "Look! I found one! It's a '_Vanessa atalanta'_!"

The older boy looks up from his book tilts his chin rather slightly higher than necessary to regard his younger brother and the insect he's holding.

"So you have," he replies and leans forward a bit in his chair to examine the butterfly still clutched in the little boy's fingers. "It is indeed a Red Admiral, an excellent addition to your collection. Well done, Sherlock."

He reaches down and retrieves a large glass jar, unscrews the lid and holds it out for Sherlock to place his prize inside atop a layer of sawdust soaked in ethyl acetate scattered over the bottom, then screws the lid on tightly and sets the jar gently down on the table at his side. The younger boy drops to his knees and presses his face close to the jar, his nose nearly touching the smooth glass. He watches the butterfly slowly open and close its wings a few times, sees its long curled tongue dart out to taste the strange material it finds itself standing on, and knows that it won't be long before the chemicals in the sealed environment of the jar do their job and the butterfly dies. It made him sad at first, he remembers. He cried the first time Mycroft had shown him how to do this, wet tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill as he asked the older boy why the butterfly had to die. He recalls the way his brother looked at him, the split second of warmth in his eyes before they narrowed with a coolness that made him shiver.

"Everything dies, Sherlock. Like Father always says—caring is not an advantage," the older boy had replied, and when he heard the small sniffle from the little boy next to him added, "Besides, how would you spread and mount this specimen for your collection if it was still alive? It will be easier to study this way, don't you agree?"

He did. Of course he did. But it still made him sad.

Now the boy watches this butterfly gradually still, wings fluttering less and less frequently as the minutes wear on, until all at once it stops moving all together, its wings half way up as it falls to one side and lies stiff at the bottom of the jar.

"Mycroft," he asks, without looking at his older brother, "why is it called a Red Admiral?"

"Because it's most distinctive wing markings are red in color," the older boy replies, his eyes never leaving the page he's reading.

The younger boy looks thoughtfully at the newest member of his collection for a moment, his chin resting on his fists on the table. "What is red like, Mycroft?"

Raising an eyebrow, his eyes still fixed on the book in his lap, he says "I have no way of knowing, Sherlock. As you are well aware."

"But don't you _want_ to know?" the little boy asks, turning his gaze from the butterfly now dead in the jar to his brother's face.

"I don't see why it matters," he replies.

"Well, I want to know," Sherlock says, his eyebrows knitting together in a frown. "I want to see all the colors. I want to see them and understand them and know why my _Vanessa atalanta_ is called the Red Admiral."

With a sigh, Mycroft closes his book and sets it aside. He looks at the little boy frowning before him, at the mess of curls that spring out in every direction from his head, and for a brief moment he wants to reach out and run his fingers through them fondly and tame the wild spirals into some semblance of order—but he resists the urge.

"We've been over this before, Sherlock," sighs Mycroft.

"I know, I know. _You can only see colors when you find your soulmate_," Sherlock recites in a sing-song voice. "And you haven't found yours so you can't see them. And neither can I." The younger boy looks over at his butterfly for a moment, his forehead wrinkled in thought, and with a small gasp turns back to his brother as a smile breaks out over his face. "I know, I'll ask Mummy! She can tell me what red is like!"

"Mummy doesn't see colors either, Sherlock," Mycroft replies, wearing a look that should be far too imperious for his 13 year old face, yet suits him.

Sherlock looks confused for a moment his eyes drifting up and to the left as he takes in this new piece of information. "But Mycroft, of course she does. You said people get to see colors when they find their soulmate. Mummy's married to Father. She must know what red is."

"No, Sherlock. She doesn't. Neither does Father."

"But, you said…" Sherlock begins.

"Yes," Mycroft snaps. "I know what I said."

Sherlock flinches as though stung and Mycroft sighs to see it. He takes a deep breath, his face softening as he looks down at the little brother he has been looking after his whole life.

"Just because two people are married, it doesn't mean that they are soulmates, Sherlock." Mycroft explains, and as he says the words and watches his clever younger brother glean his meaning from them, he feels his carefully constructed cool exterior crumble slightly. "Colors are merely a different way of seeing the world around us," he continues with a sigh. "Another set of hues from light to dark in addition to the hundreds of shades of grey we all see every day. And while the concept may be novel, color certainly isn't necessary to live and learn and do meaningful work in the world."

"You sounded like Father just now," Sherlock replies sulkily.

As much as he wants to deny it, Mycroft admits to himself that he did indeed sound like their father.

Sherlock slips sideways off his knees to sit on the ground in front of the older boy, and without stopping himself this time Mycroft stretches out his arm and runs the palm of his hand over the back of his younger brother's head before settling it on his slim shoulder. Sherlock leans slightly into the pressure and looks out over the lawn, the perfectly mown blades of grass rippling in waves of grey and smoke and ash and throwing off silver light from the afternoon sun.

"Someday I will see all the colors," Sherlock whispers.

Mycroft feels an unfamiliar tug in in the pit of his stomach, a tightness in his throat that he swallows against until it eases as he follows his brother's gaze out over the grey landscape.

"Perhaps you will, Sherlock," he says quietly. "Perhaps you will."


	2. PLATINUM

**PLATINUM**

Hunched over the carefully constructed form of the half-built model schooner before him, John grips the fine grit sandpaper between two fingers and rubs it lightly with the grain of the delicate wood from bow to stern. The surface of the worn wooden table he and Dad had dragged out onto the porch of the cottage is covered in a fine layer of powdery dust, the miniscule particles of balsa wood falling as the edges of the model are smoothed with each pass of John's hands. When his father had suggested the project at the beginning of the summer John hadn't been terribly enthusiastic about the idea. But Dad had seemed so excited about it, grinning and telling his son about the summer that he and his own father built the model ship that sits proudly on the shelf over the couch in the comfortable sitting room of the beach house where John has spent every summer for as long as he can remember.

"It'll be good fun, Johnny boy," Dad had promised, settling an arm around his son's shoulders and then backing away and looking at him with exaggerated surprise and saying "Cor, son, I think you've grown an inch since the weekend! Soon you'll be taller than me."

John had huffed out an exasperated sigh, and Dad laughed and put his arm back around him pulling him into a half-hug, his other hand coming up to ruffle through his 14 year old son's shaggy hair. Jack Watson was not a tall man, to say the least. Standing at just over 5'6" it was a running family joke that one day his children would tower over him-and the world would still consider them short. He was a compact man, his strong limbs and stocky build housing a quick mind and a big personality that often made him seem larger than he was.

"Just a bit of sport, son," he said fondly, and winked. "What we Watson men lack in brawn we make up for in brains. And you've already got more of both than your old man, my boy."

So John had agreed to the project, had helped his Dad draw up the plans and gather the materials, and for the last few weeks they've spent every afternoon out on the porch, sawing the planks and fixing them to the frame, sanding them smooth and repeating the process. And to his surprise, John found that he really enjoyed it.

He loves the feel of the wood beneath his hands, the way that the tiny rough fibers catch slightly on his skin as he runs his palm over the raw planks. He loves the whisper of the sandpaper as it passes over each piece, he loves how smooth the surface feels after being sanded, and he loves the way a pile of thin sheets of wood have somehow transformed into what actually is starting to look like a boat. But mostly he loves sitting across the table from his Dad, sometimes talking about the ship, sometimes talking about other things John finds interesting, and other times working in companionable silence with the sound of the waves rushing up the beach the only conversation to be heard.

John sets down the sandpaper, runs a soft dry cloth carefully over the length of the boat, and holds it up to his father for inspection. The older man runs a finger around each edge of the model and smiles up at his son.

"Tomorrow we start work on the masts," he tells John.

"Tomorrow?" John asks, "Why not today?"

"Because tonight Clara and her parents are joining us for dinner," Dad responds, "and I promised your sister we'd have all this cleaned up and put away long before they arrive."

As if on cue, Harry Watson appears on the sand at the edge of the porch, a towel wrapped low around her bikini clad hips and a beach bag slung over her arm. She looks windblown and surly, a mood confirmed moments later when she slides her sunglasses up onto the top of her head and stares at her Dad and brother with narrowed eyes.

"Haven't you cleaned this up yet?" she huffs. "They will be here any minute now and we can't have dinner out here with all that rubbish lying about!"

The screened door to the cottage swings open with a soft whoosh and Lynette Watson steps onto the porch holding a pie fresh out of the oven in front of her.

"They'll not be here for three hours yet, Harry," she sighs, then smiles down at her daughter as the girl climbs the steps from the beach. "I'm sure the boys will be able to clear away their project in far less time than that."

Setting the pie out on the broad porch railing to cool, she looks over at her husband who is shaking his head and smiling. John sees his father catch his mother's eye, notes the look of fondness that passes effortlessly between them, and almost can't suppress the snort of laughter that rises from his throat when he sees his dad roll his eyes toward Harry.

"We've got plenty of time," their mother says to her still frowning daughter, swiping her hands together and rubbing them clean on the front of her apron. "Why don't you and your dad drive down to the shops and pick up some wine to go with dinner?"

"Excellent idea, dear," their dad responds as he rises from the table and crosses the porch to put his arms around his wife and plants a kiss on her cheek. "A word of advice to both of you kids: If at all possible, marry someone cleverer than you are. Makes for a much easier life."

"Clara is really smart," Harry gushes. "You'll see, Dad. She's brilliant."

"I can't wait, love." Jack Watson says with a wink. "Let me just wash my hands and grab my keys and I'll be back in a tick." He follows his wife back into the house, the door clacking shut behind them.

Harry crosses the porch to one of the wooden Adirondack chairs that John and his Dad repainted last week and flops gracefully into it, sliding her long legs over one arm and looking over at her brother. Out of the corner of his eye, John sees her reach down into her bag and retrieve the pocket sized volume she's barely put down since she came home from uni for the summer holidays. She leafs through it for a few moments before stopping on a specific page and holding it out in front of her. She looks down at the book, then at her brother, then back at the book, before turning the page and holding it up again to look at the book, then her brother, then the book. Then she flips back to the previous page and repeats the process. After the third time she does this, John can't take it anymore.

"Is there a problem, Harry?" he demands.

"No problem at all, Johnny," she replies. "It's just…_interesting_, is all. I can't decide whether the color of your shirt is 'evergreen' or closer to 'olive green'. At a glance it could be either, but your shirt is a really _interesting_ shade of green. It's just slightly different than both of them. It's very…_interesting_."

"Oh, is it interesting, Harry?" John says, turning to face her. "You keep using that word. I'm not sure it means what you think it means."

He turns back to his schooner, doing his best to ignore the indignant huff she aims at him. If John had found his older sister insufferable before, it was nothing compared to this new version of Harry that had gone color during her last term at uni. She'd colorbonded with another student named Clara, and the two families are meeting for the first time tonight. He supposes he should be happy for his sister, and he thinks he is, deep down. And admittedly, he's more than a bit curious to see exactly what kind of person turns out to be the soulmate of one Harriet J. Watson. If nothing else, tonight should be, well, _interesting_.

"Look at that sky," Harriet sighs, looking out over the water. "It's so _blue_ today."

John rolls his eyes and begins to gather the various pieces of the schooner along with the tools and materials to pack them away for the night. "Right. Blue. I'll take your word for it."

"No really, Johnny," Harry continues. "I mean, the sky is almost always blue here, but today it's an especially bright shade. And the sun glows so yellow against it, it's really quite…"

John slams the handful of wood scraps he's gathered back down onto the table with a bang.

"Right, Harry. I get it. It's very _blue_. Maybe the _bluest_ blue that anyone in the world has ever seen. It's quite possibly a miracle, it's so _blue_." John hadn't meant to lose his temper, but now he was on a roll. "Someone should call Rome and let the Pope know about this. Oh, wait…could the Pope even see it? I mean, he's not married and there's that celibacy rule and all. You know what? Never mind. Just call the media instead. 'Bluest sky ever witnessed reported by loudmouthed sister, film at eleven'!"

He waits for Harry to lash back at him, to raise her voice and sneer and poke until he rises from the table and turns on her and they circle each other like fighter planes taking aim and shooting angry insults at one another until one of their parents tells them to cut out the noise and apologize to each other. That's how it has always worked between them. It's what he expects, and he readies himself for the fight.

Instead, Harry smiles at him. She _smiles_. She closes the book she is still holding, drops it back into her bag, then stands up and walks over to the table. Laying her hand on his shoulder, she looks down at him. "Sorry, Johnny. I wasn't trying to make you mad, honest I wasn't. It's just," she pauses for a moment, appearing to think over her next words carefully, and then continues "you're still just a little boy. You couldn't possibly understand. Maybe someday."

Then she pats his shoulder, smiles patronizingly, and adds, "Or maybe not."

Ah, another lovely Watson sibling moment.

Just then John's Dad steps out onto the porch and he and Harry make their way down the stairs and to the carpark at the side of the house for their trip to the shops in town. John listens as the engine starts and hears the motor fade as the car drives away. He gazes out over the water and can't help letting his eyes slide up over the horizon toward the sky that is, he's been told, quite blue today. He hears the feet of the chair to his left scrape against the wooden floor of the porch as his mom pulls it next to his and sits down beside him.

"Harriet is my daughter," she says. "And I love her as much as I love you. But she can be a bit of a git sometimes, can't she?"

John smiles, still looking at the sky, and replies, "A bit, yeah."

"For the record, though, the sky _is_ quite blue today. It's a blue that feels like an ice cube melting in your hand. And I'd call the shade of your shirt 'hunter green'. It's a very smart color on you, you know." She looks at him fondly, and he can't help but smile back. "I've got a present for you," she says, reaching into her pocket.

She pulls out a small book identical to the one Harry had been referencing earlier, and hands it to her son.

He knows the book, of course. Everyone does. There's at least one copy of 'Price's Color Key' in every home in Britain. Its pages are filled with squares that represent the 200 most commonly seen hues, grouped by base color and shade. You can always identify the recently colorbonded by the way they pull it out and study it, hold it up against whatever object now looks different than it did when they were grey. When he'd asked about it as a child his Mum had done her best to explain how different the world looked once you had color, and how the book helps people understand all the new shades their eyes can suddenly see.

"It's the copy your Gran gave me when I met your Dad," his mum replies. "It's a bit old and worn on the edges now, but the colors are all there and ready to help you learn to see the world in a brand new way."

"But Mum," John protests. "What do I need it for? I don't have colors."

"You don't have colors, _yet_," she corrects. "But one day you will, and this way you'll be ready when it happens. And until then, you can make notes about all the ways that colors _feel_. Look, I've filled in a few already."

She takes the book from him, flips through the first few pages, and then shows him a small square with the word "PINK" in bold letters beneath it. Just below, the phrase _"soft like a whisper"_ is written in pen. He takes the book from her and flips through the pages until he finds another note in his mother's familiar flowing script under a darker grey square marked "RED" that says _"hot like a huff of breath or a kiss"_. Flipping through the pages he finds other notations and each one makes him recall the time he asked his mum about that color the explanation she had given him. A medium grey square defined as "YELLOW" says "_warm like butter melting into toast"_, and a dark grey square titled "NAVY BLUE" has the words _"like the air at the beach just before a storm"_ printed neatly beneath it.

John turns the book over in his hands a few times, runs his fingers across the cover and down the spine, then looks up at his mother. "Ta, Mum."

"You're welcome, love," she tells him fondly, running a hand through his hair and turning toward the cottage door.

"Mum," he blurts out without meaning to, "what if I never get colors?"

A look of surprise crosses her features and then melts into something tender. "You will, John."

"But how do you know that?" John asks, urgency building in his voice. "Some people don't ever go color. Like my history teacher Mr. Gillen, or Ms. Brady who works at the bike shop back home. What if I never meet my soulmate or see anything except what I've always seen. What if I'm grey forever?"

Lynette Watson has never lied to her children, and she's not about to start now.

"That's true, Johnny," she says. "Some people stay grey their whole lives. But I don't believe you'll be one of them."

"But you can't know that for sure," John insists.

She looks at her son thoughtfully, considering. "You're right, I can't know that for sure. But I believe with everything in me that the world won't stay grey for you. From the time you could talk you've been fascinated by the idea of colors, long before you should have even understood what they were. I don't know when it will be, or who will make it happen, but one day when you least expect it everything you've ever seen will change. One moment the world will be the same comfortable and familiar grey it's always been, and the next it will be something new."

"Is that how it happened for you," he asks, "when you met Dad?"

"Yes," she says, smiling at the memory. "One moment everything was normal, nothing special, same old same old, sitting on the beach looking out over the white sun setting behind the waves rolling dark and grey into the sand, and then your father took my hand and it's like the world…shivered…went fuzzy at the edges, and all of a sudden everything changed. It was the same sun, the same sea, the same beach, the same young man sitting next to me…but _more_."

She turns her head to see her son staring back at her raptly with wide eyes, a stunned look on his face. And suddenly it's funny to her, trying to explain the most intense moment of her life to her 14 year old son, and she can't help but laugh. He looks startled for a moment, then smiles back at her.

"It's tough to describe," she explains.

"The way Harry tells it," John complains, "Clara rode out of the sky on a bolt of lighting, zapped her on the head, and suddenly everything on earth had the most _interesting_ hues."

John's mom fails to suppress the giggle his description prompts in her, so she gives up and throws her head back and laughs, a sound so genuine and infectious her son can't help but join her.

"Between you and me, Johnny, that's not quite how it happened. No matter what Harry says now, it wasn't exactly a 'bolt of lightning' as you put it. Her colors came in over a few days, new shades and tones getting stronger and brighter. And Clara didn't go color until several weeks after Harry did. I was on the phone with your sister for hours at night, assuring her that it happens differently for everyone, telling her to be patient, that sometimes the bond can take time to grow but that just means it will be all the stronger for it."

"What's Clara like, do you think?" John wonders.

"I don't know, but we'll find out in," she checks the watch on her wrist, "oh, just over two hours or so. But from what your sister says, she's kind and smart and Harry loves her so I'm inclined to already as well."

"Kind, smart _and_ she loves Harry?" John asks incredulously. "Seems a bit dodgy to me."

His mother huffs out another small laugh and reaches up to ruffle her son's hair. "You're very different people, you and your sister. And to be honest I wondered a bit about just who this person who brought my daughter colors would be. I love Harry, and I want her to be happy, but I worry about her sometimes. When you're given things easily, you don't always appreciate them. But with you, Johnny, I'm not worried. When it happens for you, love, it will be wonderful. You'll be amazed by what you see. I can't wait to hear which color is your favorite."

She stands up from the table, leans over and brushes a kiss onto the top of her son's head. John looks down at the copy of Price's Color Key in his hand, and on a whim asks "Mum, what is your favorite color?"

She smiles down at him. "That's easy," she replies. "Purple."

"Yeah?" her son replies. "What does purple feel like?"

She thinks for a moment, looks over the items still scattered on the table, then picks up the soft dusting cloth in her hand. "Purple is a complicated color, Johnny. It starts soft and mellow," she says and runs the edge of the soft fabric down the back of his neck, "but it finishes like a shiver." And she skitters the tips of her fingernails up the same skin and scratches the hair on the back of his head affectionately. John does shiver, and they both laugh.

"Come on, then," his mother says, "clear off this table and come help me get ready for our guests."

John turns back to the table and goes to slip his new book into his pocket, but stops and flips through the pages searching for the right square and thinks: _Purple, huh? I better write that down._

* * *

"MYCROFT!"

At the sound of his name being bellowed down the hall from several rooms away, Mycroft Holmes glances up from the book he's been reading in his favorite chair in the library, closes his eyes and sighs heavily.

The door bursts open and his thirteen year old brother stands in the doorway, gangly limbs and wild hair protruding at impossible angles from his wiry frame. Framed as he is by the afternoon light, Mycroft notices again how tall the boy has grown this past school year. He'd barely recognized the young man who'd approached the car their father had sent to pick him up from Eton at the end of term, scowled at his older brother's greeting, then folded himself into the back seat next to him and sulked silently the entire drive home.

Mycroft hasn't seen much of Sherlock around the house these past few weeks. Hardly surprising, he thinks. The manor itself is one of the largest private homes in the area that still serves as a primary residence, and the full time staff outnumber the family occupants three to one. Even with generous living quarters allotted for the four family members in residence and the large common spaces they use for meals and the occasional strained social gathering, large portions of the house haven't been in use for years. Someone knowledgeable about the layout could find space enough to wander and explore without ever crossing paths with another person for days at a time, and his younger brother is familiar with every nook and cranny of the old house, and every acre of the grounds as well.

A bright and imaginative child, Sherlock was prone to exploration almost from the time he could walk. Before Mycroft was sent away to school, he had delighted in leading his little brother on countless adventures. As the only two children of preoccupied parents of a social class who believed that children should be left to the care of household staff until of an age that they could be relied upon to comport themselves in a civilized manner, after their lessons were completed each day Mycroft and Sherlock had been free to explore all the wonders that the Holmes estate had to offer. They roamed the woods that surrounded the grounds and splashed in the nearby stream, spent long summer days crawling through their mother's prize winning gardens collecting insects and digging for worms, followed the head groundskeeper around while he supervised the stable hands in grooming and exercising the horses, and darted between the long benches in the kitchen house begging the cook to sample the latest baked goods left to cool on the window sills.

And on the days when the weather kept them from roaming the grounds, the grand house was their lunar landscape, their Amazonian jungle terrain, and the vast dunes of the Gobi desert. Mycroft and his little brother would wander down to the staff quarters, seeking out the day old newspapers gathered up by the housekeepers to fold into long pointed tip hats and asking the bored undergardeners to help them fashion fireplace kindling into makeshift pirate swords. Weapons brandished, they would take off up the back staircase to plunder what riches could be found in the house's large attic. Or, as on one memorable occasion, they would let one of the hunting dogs sheltering from the rain under the back steps of the servant's quarters into the house so they could chase him down, tail wagging and yipping happily through the long halls until it knocked them over to lick at their faces and the housekeeper had ordered the dog be tossed overboard for the crime of tracking mud all over her floors, and back out the door it would be sent.

In short, Mycroft had loved his little brother more than anything in the world. The summer he turned twelve, his parents informed him that he was to be sent to school that fall. Sherlock cried when he learned that his big brother would be leaving.

"Who will play pirates with me?" he asked, his lip quivering.

"I will," Mycroft replied, "when I'm home from school on holidays."

"Who will help me tie my shoes when they come undone?" Sherlock continued. "Who will let me sleep in their bed when the thunder wakes me up and tell me not to be scared? Who will remind me not to fidget at the table so that Father doesn't get angry and send me to my rooms without dinner?"

Mycroft had looked down at his brother and realized that he didn't know who would do those things in his absence. So instead of answering he forced a smile and said "It's not for a few weeks yet, Sherlock." The younger boy stepped forward and threw his arms around his big brother's waist, pressing his cheek against the older boy's slightly pudgy tummy.

When he left for Eton that fall, Mycroft stood in the long drive out front watching his trunks being loaded into the back of the car. Looking back toward the house he could see his brother's curly head outlined in the second floor window of his bedroom chamber. He listened to his father's admonitions about 'tradition' and 'honor' and 'upholding the fine reputation of the name of Holmes' and nodded at all the appropriate intervals until his father turned and walked back toward the house, leaving his eldest son standing by the car that would take him away from home for the first time, alone. He had looked back up to the window where Sherlock stood, raised his hand and gave a small wave then watched as the younger boy turned around and walked away from the window and out of sight.

Mycroft had loved Eton from the very first day. Had excelled in his coursework and enjoyed the strange mix of new freedom and strict tradition that school offered. But when he'd returned home before Christmas, the curly haired boy who sat in the library reading a book so large that it looked ridiculous on his small lap wasn't the same child he'd left just months before. That night at dinner Sherlock sat straight in his chair, responding when addressed but never speaking out of turn. He didn't come out of his room at all that evening, even when Mycroft knocked on his bedroom door. And late that night, when a peal of thunder shook the window panes and lightning streaked the sky, habit had propelled Mycroft out of his bed and down the hall to make sure Sherlock was all right. When he opened the door, his eyes fell on the small form of his brother beneath the sheets, face slack with sleep seemingly not bothered in the least. He stared for a moment longer, then quietly shut the door and returned to his own room.

It had never been quite the same between them again. Sometimes Mycroft would catch the ghost of a look from his younger brother, a glimpse of the little boy who'd watched him leave for school from the second floor window, but just as quickly as it was there it would be gone. Mycroft would think to himself later that he wasn't sure that Sherlock ever really forgave him for leaving him alone in that house. And if he was feeling particularly honest, he would admit that he'd never quite forgiven himself, either.

Now home for the summer holidays before his last year at university, Mycroft looks at this adolescent version of the little boy who loved to play pirates and was afraid of thunder and finds it hard to reconcile that innocent, carefree child with the petulant, angry young man before him.

"Where are they, Mycroft?" Sherlock demands. "What have you done with them?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific, brother dear," Mycroft patiently replies. "To what, exactly, are you referring?"

"My laboratory specimens," he replies, as though Mycroft is being unbearably dull. "I had three rabbits in various stages of dissection on the table in my sitting room, and now they are GONE, along with all my tools, my chemicals, and even my notes! I demand to know where they are!"

"They've been removed, Sherlock," Mycroft tells him simply. "Apparently three freshly disemboweled rabbit corpses was a sight unexpected enough to send the day maid into hysterics when she went to tidy your rooms."

"Oh _please_," the younger boy retorts, "I didn't _kill_ them, Mycroft. They were caught in the gardener's snares, apparently executed for the crime of nibbling at Mummy's roses. And besides, it's not as if it's the first time I've performed dissections in my rooms. I was there when Susannah tidied my sitting room a few weeks ago and the dozen toads I had pinned out on trays didn't seem to come as a shock to her then."

"Well, Sherlock," Mycroft replies coolly, "I am given to understand that half dissected animal corpses are slightly more shocking when the blood smeared into their fur and dripped across the floors to be cleaned appears bright red in color to the observer."

"Oh God," Sherlock huffs. "So I can no longer perform perfectly valid scientific experiments because the day maid was foolish enough to lose her head and think herself in love? How is that _fair_?"

"No one ever said life was fair, Sherlock."

"I was gathering valuable information from those dissections, Mycroft," Sherlock continued to rant. "I was supplementing my rather dreadfully pedestrian education with actual _science_. I can't believe you would throw away all my work before I'd even had a chance to collect the data. But I suppose unless it's to do with international politics, or British foreign relations, or _cake_, or something else _you_ care about then it's just not important at all and can be binned without a second thought!"

"Sherlock," sighs Mycroft, "if you will calm yourself for just a moment and try to think rationally, I believe you'll realize that I said that they'd been 'removed', not 'binned'. Your experiment is completely intact, it is simply no longer in your rooms, which have been deemed to be an atmosphere unsuitable to laboratory work."

Mycroft presses his lips together in a small smile and observes his brother's air of righteous indignation deflate slightly before the younger boy catches himself in the act of conceding a fair point to his older brother and puffs himself back up to haughtily inquire, "Where, then, might it be?"

"I've arranged for the attic room of the carriage house to serve as your laboratory for the summer," Mycroft informs him. "I think you will find the light there more than adequate for observation, and you'll have plenty of room to perform your experiments without terrorizing the household staff with the colorful nature of your work."

Sherlock blinks a few times at this unexpectedly sensible solution to the problem at hand. With a small nod, he looks down at his older brother and says, "Acceptable." Mycroft nods at this rare display of civility and nearly gracious response before Sherlock rolls his eyes and adds, "I suppose."

"You're welcome, brother dear." Mycroft sighs, and turns his eyes back to his book.

To his surprise, Sherlock doesn't twirl around and storm from the room, but instead walks forward and flounces into the chair next to his brother with a huff.

"It's so dreadfully boring here," he says with all the petulance a thirteen year old genius can muster. "I don't understand why I couldn't just stay at school for the summer."

"I am given to understand that the official answer to that question included the words 'irresponsible', 'uncooperative', 'liability' and 'explosion'," Mycroft replies smoothly.

"Did it also include the word 'alleged'? There was absolutely no proof that I was responsible for that mishap in the science wing," replies Sherlock. "Besides, if they don't want their students to experiment, why do they have all those chemicals available in the labs?"

"Are you referring to the chemicals that are kept locked in a secure cabinet in a locked room to which only the staff of the Chemistry department have access to?" Mycroft inquires.

"Well, if they meant them to be truly inaccessible they would have installed locks that were slightly more secure than could be picked with just a hairpin and a few moments time. It's hardly my fault they are so lax about security," Sherlock replies, then glances over at Mycroft with a small smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. "Allegedly."

Mycroft shakes his head slightly and pretends to read his book, but can't quite stop the smile that threatens from behind his lips.

"Besides, it should have been a simple experiment, the instructions were very clear. The compound could be reliably said to be stable as long as the precise proportions of each ingredient were added at just the right intervals. And when it started to smoke, I didn't think anything of it—because it was supposed to smoke…it's just that it turns out that the _color_ of the smoke was important to the timing of the last addition to the mixture. And I had no way of knowing that it was blue instead of the green it was meant to be," Sherlock explains, his forehead creasing in distress. "I didn't know. I dislike not knowing."

"Well Sherlock, as a good portion of the world sees only in greyscale," Mycroft advises, "you would do well to learn how to manage without color in matters such as those."

Sherlock raises a brow skeptically and asks "How?"

"As I've told you before, Colors are merely…" Mycroft begins.

"Yes, yes, yes, Mycroft. 'Colors are merely a different way of seeing the world around us, another set of hues from light to dark in addition to the hundreds of shades of grey we all see every day,'" he repeats in a slightly mocking tone.

"Precisely," continues Mycroft. "So if you cannot see the hue, you must find a way to deduce what it is using your other senses and your powers of observation. For instance: there are stains on the knees of your dungarees. They are green and brown."

Sherlock sits up a little straighter, looks down at his knees and then back up at his brother with narrowed eyes and asks, "How do you know?"

"I know that you were not in your rooms for very long before you barged through the door yelling at the top of your lungs, demanding to know the location of your specimens. I also know that said specimens were relocated just under two hours before you noticed they were gone and so vocally expressed your displeasure. When you entered the library I could see by the state of your hair that it had been recently mussed, and since I know that you had already showered this morning and that you spend an inordinate amount of time arranging your curls to look as though they are artfully disheveled, I deduce that you've been outside in the wind, which has been quite strong today if the sound of it rushing over the dormers outside this very room is any indication. Add to this observation that there are three blades of grass sticking out of your left trouser cuff, another small one caught in the watchband at your wrist, and one more precariously balanced in the curve of a particularly obstinate curl over your right ear, and the fact that I can detect the faint scent of freshly mown grass on your clothing, I can therefore deduce that you've been on your knees at some point on the lawn—most likely the south lawn as it is mowed regularly on Tuesdays—and grass being green, and freshly cut grass being particularly prone to staining, the stains on your knees are therefore _green_."

Sherlock's mouth hangs slightly open, but for a change he looks more intrigued than annoyed. "Ok. But you said they were green _and_ brown. Explain."

"Simple, really. One must only look at the appalling state of your fingernails to discern that there's enough soil underneath them to grow potatoes in, and that the stains on your knees are of two separate types: first, a wet stain that bleeds into the fabric-the grass stain, which is green-and a surface stain that sits atop the fibers, with small particles of dirt clinging to the fabric. If you were on your knees on the south lawn, then I can fairly assume that you were crawling from the edge of the grass and into the garden collecting various insects which now reside in the small jar that is in your right hip pocket, the outline of which is clearly visible through your trousers. And since dirt is, in general and specifically on the south lawn of this estate, brown, then the stains on your knees must be both green _and_ brown." Mycroft finishes the speech with an expectant look at his younger brother.

"Well, you _may_ be correct." Sherlock concedes, "But since I know for a fact that you cannot see colors, and neither can I, there's no way to prove whether or not you're right."

Mycroft smiles indulgently at his younger brother, then reaches out and and picks up a small silver handled bell from the table beside him. He shakes it gently, then sets it down and goes back to reading his book. The brothers sit in silence, Mycroft looking at his book, and Sherlock looking at Mycroft.

After a few moments, a young woman in a maid's uniform enters the room and says "You called for me, Mr. Holmes?"

"Ah yes, Susannah," Mycroft replies. "I wonder if you might help young Sherlock and I settle something?"

"Of course, Mr. Holmes," Susannah replies with a smile.

"It seems my brother has stained the knees of his trousers rather dreadfully." Mycroft intones. "I wonder if you might tell us what color, or colors, those stains are?"

Susannah looks confused for just a moment, then regards Sherlock's knees and says "They're green sir, and brown."

"Yes, thank you Susannah," Mycroft says. "That will be all."

The young day maid nods and leaves the room. Sherlock turns to his brother and simply stares at him for a few moments. Mycroft watches the flurry of thoughts pass through his brother's remarkable brain, imagining that he can see in the movement of his eyes the synapses rearranging and meeting and sparking to life.

"Mycroft, how does Susannah know what 'brown' and 'green' look like?" Sherlock asks. "If she's seen only grey for most of her life, how does seeing a new hue become associated with the name the world has given it?"

"There's a book that the newly colorbonded use to help define the new shades and hues they see, a primer of sorts to aid in the transition. I'm sure there's a copy around here somewhere," Mycroft says and rises to look over one of the many sets of shelves inset into the walls of the room. He reaches up between two taller volumes and retrieves a small pocket sized book, walks back to his brother and hands it to him.

Sherlock snatches it from his hands, flips through the pages eying each of the apparently various grey shaded boxes until he finds the one marked "GREEN". He holds it out next to his right knee, his eyes darting from the square in the book to the stain on his trousers, then back again. With a flurry of pages he locates the swatch labeled "BROWN" and repeats the same motions with his eyes. Stain, book, stain, book. He closes the book, brings it up toward his mouth and taps it against his lips then pops up out of his chair, spins around once frantically, then turns and nearly sprints for the door.

"Change your trousers before dinner, Sherlock," Mycroft calls after him.

"No time, Mycroft!" Sherlock shouts over his shoulder. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in my lab!"

Mycroft watches his brother run out of the room, and is startled when Sherlock suddenly reappears in the doorway, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small glass jar and holding it up.

"Oh by the way, I wasn't collecting insects. I was collecting worms. You got that part _wrong_." Then the younger boy flashes a smirk at his brother, and takes off again down the hall.

In the wake of Sherlock's departure, Mycroft Holmes huffs out a small laugh in spite of himself.

"Worms. _Damn_. It's always something."

* * *

**If you enjoyed these first two chapters, I hope you'll come and read the rest!**

**This story is complete (15 chapters, 140K+ words total) and fully posted. In order to comply with this site's rating standards, this fic (rated MA for some later scenes) can be found in its entirety at AO3, direct link available in my profile.**


End file.
